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[Lodewijk_Ramon]

Just a question before upgrading my Mac to High Sierra: Is MC running without problems a Mac with High Sierra and the new APFS file system?

[Awesome Donkey]

It works fine here. But then again I keep my music on a different drive that's NTFS.

But I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't work though.

[blgentry]

But then again I keep my music on a different drive that's NTFS.

Blasphemy!

Seriously, why would you do this to yourself?  Unless you share this drive with a Windows machine frequently or something?  Even so, isn't FAT32 a better choice since you can actually write to it on a Mac without using a questionable 3rd party shim?

To the OP:  I'd be quietly cautious about APFS.  It has great promise and was designed by a "big deal" guy in file systems.  But I don't think it's been tested much yet.  I personally will probably skip 10.13 and wait for 10.14.  Probably.

Sierra, 10.12, works great on my machines with MC.

Brian.

[Awesome Donkey]

It's shared between 4 OSes so I chose NTFS (and Windows is the main managing OS).

Fortunately FUSE for Mac is a thing and works perfectly for read/write to NTFS.

APFS seems to be working just fine thus far, even with my good ol' Hackintosh + Clover bootloader. The *only* downside is the Linux installs can't access the APFS filesystem partition just in case anything goes wrong, though I suspect an open source driver will eventually be created for this purpose.

[Magic_Randy]

It appears to work just fine. I've not done a lot of testing but MC 23.0.52 opens and appears to behave correctly. I can play music, and yes it is local on the PC with the new APFS file system.

BTW: I have multiple Macs. I only upgraded one of them. The rest will wait until I have confidence that this new file system will hold together.

[Lodewijk_Ramon]

Magic_Randy, thanks for your reply to my question. I am somewhat surprised though that the MC-team didn’t test MC running on a machine with MacOS 10.13.
A question at Brian: Why skip 10.13 and wait for 10.14. We don’t know anything about 10.14. I miss a logical basis for the suggestion.
I think that I am going to upgrade after securing a full backup. I’ll keep you informed about the outcome thru this forum.

[Hendrik]

Even so, isn't FAT32 a better choice since you can actually write to it on a Mac without using a questionable 3rd party shim?

FAT32 has serious limitations though, and noone really should be using it anymore. exFAT would be a good option as well, but support for it is quite limited among other operating systems (no clue if OSX supports it, even).
NTFS is probably the best you can do if you need to share between all three major OSes, the open-source NTFS drivers are pretty good now.

[Awesome Donkey]

exFAT would be a good option as well, but support for it is quite limited among other operating systems (no clue if OSX supports it, even).

Yes, macOS supports exFAT.

The NTFS-3G driver for Mac and Linux works rather well.

[blgentry]

FAT32 has serious limitations though, and noone really should be using it anymore.

What limitations give you pause?  I've never had any issues with FAT32, except not being able to create files of over 4GB.  For music files this isn't a problem.

exFAT would be a good option as well, but support for it is quite limited among other operating systems (no clue if OSX supports it, even).

ExFAT is kind of the bastard child.  It's mostly an MS focused file system.  Linux and OSX both support it and I've tried it.  It has odd issues with characters that are supported and seems to have a strange issue with time stamps as well.  I probably will not be using it in the future.  I'm probably going back to FAT32 for "portable" file systems.

NTFS is probably the best you can do if you need to share between all three major OSes, the open-source NTFS drivers are pretty good now.

I find the idea abhorrent.  It was never designed to be "open" in any way.  Sure it's more advanced than FAT, but OSX doesn't support it natively and I'm very reluctant to load any foreign kernel drivers under OSX.  For all of you guys that use Windows as your standard, perhaps this makes sense.   For those of us who stay away from all MS products on purpose, using NTFS is a step in the wrong direction.  I think we have both shown our biases now. 

Brian.

[Awesome Donkey]

Actually, macOS *does* support NTFS natively. By default it can read NTFS volumes, and via the Terminal and fstab you *can* enable read/write for NTFS volumes without needing third-party drivers. But it's a bit of a PITA to set up, it's considered experimental/unstable and it's easier to do it with third-party drivers (which can also be faster than the native support), e.g. NTFS-3G.

[blgentry]

A question at Brian: Why skip 10.13 and wait for 10.14. We don’t know anything about 10.14. I miss a logical basis for the suggestion.
I think that I am going to upgrade after securing a full backup. I’ll keep you informed about the outcome thru this forum.

Apple has tended to make mistakes as they do major version upgrades of OSX.  Changing the base level file system is a "big deal".  I am the type of person that would rather let other people experiment with a very new feature and find all of the problems.  Then get them worked out and wait for the next release where things are more stable.  This strategy might keep me from the latest upgrade for a year.  Which might be a good idea.  Or I might have waited for no reason.

Either way, I won't be missing much.  OSX is very stable and even 10.9 or 10.10 still works great today.  If I stay on 10.12 for an extra 8 to 12 months for safety, it won't impact my ability to use apps, and use my computer in the way I want to.  It's all about have a stable environment.  When 10.14 comes out, I'll probably wait a few months also to make sure it's stable and doesn't have any weird bugs.  This is how I approach computing.  It sounds like you approach things differently. 

Brian.

[blgentry]

Actually, macOS *does* support NTFS natively. By default it can read NTFS volumes, and via the Terminal you *can* enable read/write for NTFS volumes without needing third-party drivers. But it's a bit of a PITA to set up, it's considered experimental/unstable and it's easier to do it with third-party drivers (which can also be faster than the native support), e.g. NTFS-3G.

Thanks for the reminder.  I think I had read about this a few years ago, but forgot in the mean time.  As you said, it's not considered stable and is pretty weird, in that you have to edit the /etc/fstab *per drive* and once the volumes are mounted they are "invisible" (not on the desktop or in the side bar).

This might occasionally be useful if I need to write to an NTFS drive.  I'll have to keep it in mind.  But for persistent access, I'll stick with a different file system.  Again, it's all about what you are comfortable with and what you do with the drive.  Since I rarely touch windows systems, NTFS doesn't make a lot of sense for me.  Now, if I build a Windows based MC HTPC system in the future, I might change my tune...

Thanks for the discussion. 

Brian.

[Hendrik]

What limitations give you pause?  I've never had any issues with FAT32, except not being able to create files of over 4GB.  For music files this isn't a problem.

- Max Volume size (2TB isn't really big anymore in todays world)
- Max file size (4GB, really?)

I suppose if all you have is tiny music drives, you get away with whatever. But I prefer to store anything I might encounter on a drive.

ExFAT is kind of the bastard child.  It's mostly an MS focused file system.  Linux and OSX both support it and I've tried it.  It has odd issues with characters that are supported and seems to have a strange issue with time stamps as well.  I probably will not be using it in the future.  I'm probably going back to FAT32 for "portable" file systems.

exFAT sees quite wide usage around the world, its even the default file system for lage SD Cards as defined by the SD Card Association, if it doesn't work on OSX properly, then you only have one party to blame, and its not Microsoft.

I find the idea abhorrent.  It was never designed to be "open" in any way.

Neither was FAT32, its also a Microsoft File System, or any file system Apple uses, for that matter. So that argument kinda falls flat on its face if the alternative you propose is even from the same vendor.

PS: "FUSE" drivers are not loaded into kernel space, thats their entire point, FUSE stands for "Filesystem in Userspace", ie. the kernel interface is nicely capsuled away so that such a driver couldn't do anything bad.

[Awesome Donkey]

Yeah, 2 years ago I was running my NTFS volumes in read/write with the native driver for a couple months. It actually worked pretty good overall, but it was just way too slow so I opted to use FUSE with NTFS-3G.

There's paid NTFS drivers for Mac (e.g. Paragon and Tuxera but Tuxera, AFAIK, uses NTFS-3G) but I don't recommend those unless you need the fastest read/write speeds possible with NTFS on the Mac.

P.S. There is a FUSE exFAT module available.

[blgentry]

exFAT sees quite wide usage around the world, its even the default file system for lage SD Cards as defined by the SD Card Association, if it doesn't work on OSX properly, then you only have one party to blame, and its not Microsoft.

I'm honestly not sure if it's a problem with how ExFAT represents characters and time stamps or if it's an OSX specific issue.  I just know that trying to do an rsync to an ExFAT volume, from a Mac volume, has been problematic for me.  So I'll probably use a different file system the next time I need to do this.

Neither was FAT32, its also a Microsoft File System, or any file system Apple uses, for that matter. So that argument kinda falls flat on its face if the alternative you propose is even from the same vendor.

FAT32 is kind of like an old Ford truck.  It's been around forever.  Everyone knows how to use it.  It has it's limits and no one really expects much from it.  But it tends to work pretty much every time in the way that you would expect it to.  That's why I like it.  Despite it not being "designed to be open", it's been in wide use on many different OSes for many many years and works well. 

PS: "FUSE" drivers are not loaded into kernel space, thats their entire point, FUSE stands for "Filesystem in Userspace", ie. the kernel interface is nicely capsuled away so that such a driver couldn't do anything bad.

While I get that concept, it *still* loads a kernel extension.  My early experience with OSX taught me that pretty much all kernel extensions are something to be cautious of, if not downright scared of.  I've seen many Macs completely lock up with bad kexts. I've seen several that had to be rescue re-installed because of kexts.  Perhaps my caution is misplaced in today's world, as I haven't had that experience with kexts in at least 6 years now.

Can we at least agree that neither of you are any where close to full time Mac users and are primarily Windows people, who are very comfortable with and like that environment?  In Hendrik's case, I don't think you ever use a Mac other than for testing purposes.

This is no insult at all to either of you.  I actually find you both to be very valuable and intelligent people.  I'm just trying to add some perspective to your commentary.

Thanks,

Brian.

[aliciaviola]

I installed OS High-Sierra two days ago and there are no problems with MediaCenter. The system is stable and faster than OS Sierra (Mid 2010 Mac Pro Quad-Core).
The only problem that I experienced so far is that Filemaker Pro advanced 11 (32 bit) now regularly crashes. Apple tells that High-Sierra will be the last system that supports 32 bit programs but I suggest that this may be already a problem now.

Frank

[BrownBear]

Hi Guys,

I upgraded to High Sierra last night and experienced some issues with video playback  ?. Every time I tried playing a video/movie it starts to play and then JRiver freezes (picture and sound stops playing). Pressing any buttons does nothing. Eventually the OS puts me back on the login page and I need to log in again. Tried updating from build 41 to 52 (clean install) but still get this problem. Playing music work fine, it is only videos. Any idea what could be causing this? Everything worked prior to the update.

Most of my files are on a NAS and JRiver access it via mounted volumes.

Thanks for any help.

[RD James]

I find the idea abhorrent.  It was never designed to be "open" in any way.  Sure it's more advanced than FAT, but OSX doesn't support it natively and I'm very reluctant to load any foreign kernel drivers under OSX.  For all of you guys that use Windows as your standard, perhaps this makes sense.   For those of us who stay away from all MS products on purpose, using NTFS is a step in the wrong direction.  I think we have both shown our biases now. 

You're the one clearly showing their biases here.
FAT32 and exFAT are no less of a Microsoft product than NTFS is. Just because Apple's native driver operates in read-only mode by default for NTFS drives doesn't change that.
Data integrity is what should matter, and of the three, NTFS should be the most reliable file system.
It might be fine for SD cards in cameras, where that is just temporary storage before being transferred to a computer, but there's no way that I'd trust my data on an external drive formatted to FAT32 or exFAT.

[blgentry]

I apologize for de-railing this thread with a Mac file system discussion.  Perhaps an admin can split it?

To RD James:  Do you have a Mac? Do you use a Mac?  If not, your commentary doesn't have a lot of relevance.

Thanks,

Brian.

[RD James]

I apologize for de-railing this thread with a Mac file system discussion.  Perhaps an admin can split it?
To RD James:  Do you have a Mac? Do you use a Mac?  If not, your commentary doesn't have a lot of relevance.
Thanks, Brian.

Yes, I own and use several Macs, and have done since before they made the switch to Intel. Started with a 17" Powerbook G4 in 2003.
I also insist that family members buy Apple hardware, or else they will not receive any tech support help from me. I don't have many issues with Windows myself, but I refuse to support other people's Windows machines.

[blgentry]

^ Cool.  So what file system do you use for external drives that you will share with a Mac and other Operating Systems?  NTFS?  *Maybe* this whole thread will make me install FUSE for Mac and give it a try.  Maybe. 

I also try to not support windows machines, but I end up doing it anyway.  Just fixed my neighbor's problem with Dragon and Word last week.  Most of my family now own Macs too.

Brian.

[blgentry]

To the OP:  See the current thread in this forum where one user is having major issues playing video files with High Sierra.  Not sure what's causing it just yet...

Brian.